HEMA and Budo

[Phlog]

It's interesting to see that the understanding of why Japanese bladesmithing developed along the lines that it did have more or less common among sword nerds. 20-25 years ago, I'd bring up inferior iron as the driver for extremely sophisticated metallurgy that was a technological dead-end, I would run into vehement resistance.

Interesting to see the thread resurrect. I don't disagree with anything I wrote save one statement that I'd like to correct.

There is one thing the katana does better than any other sword and this one thing can make enough difference to swing the fight. No other sword is even in the katana's league in this aspect of swordplay.

Any takers?

Remember to phrase your response in the form of a question.

Is it the wearing of the katana blade up with the saya unfixed in the belt, coupled with blade length? He who strikes first usually wins and this arrangement makes drawing and cutting easier.

The weight and balance, shape all collude in the application of a cut with speed.

 

[SandisLL]

What they do have is a lot of texts to work back from as the art caught on in Italy and then Spain.

A knifefighter in my youth in my circle was a person who had did duel vs lad on completely equal terms.
It isn't YT or etc like things.
Short description: in my circle this was: you enter in the room, and walk till table. If you walk till table, it is already very good and decent action.
Opponent lad is doing the same.
When you will lift knife, maybe you will feel like this is 100 lbs weight. This will be first step in reality.
No one will judge you or laugh at you if you will not do this.
The judges here are only: God and you with this lad.
When you will do next step to close distance, only God, this lad and you will judge this.
You also do have rights not to do step after you had lifted knife.
3-6 months fulltime crash course will not prepare you to fight against knifefighter.

There are 2 ways to end this: if one from 2 isn't able to continue or both had agreed to cease this idiotism.
Btw might happen more close to very dirty KB/ standup grappling and so on.

It was called " walk long road " .
Under old codex. Not hema, old euro origin codex.

 

[Phlog]

Just finished a six week introduction to Roworths art of defense, a English infantry saber instructional.



Historically pretty interesting, has some fun aspects to it, the use of the sword as a guard with sword as close to enemy as possible and you furthest away.

The parry and repost, flowing circular movements with the wrist are effective. I didn't think there would be enough power but speed kills.

A lot of it is very evocative of old pirate films and modern saber fencing.

 

[Chesten_Hesten]

Just finished a six week introduction to Roworths art of defense, a English infantry saber instructional.



Historically pretty interesting, has some fun aspects to it, the use of the sword as a guard with sword as close to enemy as possible and you furthest away.

The parry and repost, flowing circular movements with the wrist are effective. I didn't think there would be enough power but speed kills.

A lot of it is very evocative of old pirate films and modern saber fencing.

If you have time and don't have to win it all at once, (a one on one fight) its the safest way to attack what's closest to you. Like systematically pulling the legs off a Daddy long-legs.

 

[Doughbelly]

Drawing? No sword system emphasises drawing like the Japanese / katana system?

Is it the wearing of the katana blade up with the saya unfixed in the belt, coupled with blade length? He who strikes first usually wins and this arrangement makes drawing and cutting easier.

The weight and balance, shape all collude in the application of a cut with speed.

Exactly. The katana blade is relatively short, heavy, thick and unwieldy compared to comparable fencing blades of the era but there is no one who deploys his blade faster and strikes first before the Japanese kenshi. All of the contemporary accounts from external observers remark upon it. All moot in open field battle or a duel, but very few other swords are expected to perform well across all types of armed combat.

 

[maddog0798]

katana wasn't the main weapon of the samurai

 

[Doughbelly]

katana wasn't the main weapon of the samurai

Yes, yes. And Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, there were more than just 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, Vikings didn't wear horned helmets and Catherine the Great wasn't fucked to death by a horse. Any more historical myths that no one mentioned in this thread that warrant debunking?

(Though one could in fact argue that the katana was indeed the main weapon of the samurai for most of the period that they were an extant class, depending on the era.)

 

[Phlog]

Yes, yes. And Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, there were than just 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, Vikings didn't wear horned helmets and Catherine the Great wasn't fucked to death by a horse. Any more historical myths that no one mentioned in this thread that warrant debunking?

(Though one could in fact argue that the katana was indeed the main weapon of the samurai for most of the period that they were an extant class, depending on the era.)

Agreed, war was only a small part of their lives and they were carrying around, training with and using the katana on the reg. Spear is a weapon for group conflict, not one on one.

In the spirit of mentioning irrelevant history,
one of the oldest forms I studied all started from kneeling, that was cool. Not so useful on the battlefield. Basically how to finish a meeting that's pissing you off.

 

[Doughbelly]

Agreed, war was only a small part of their lives and they were carrying around, training with and using the katana on the reg. Spear is a weapon for group conflict, not one on one.

In the spirit of mentioning irrelevant history,
one of the oldest forms I studied all started from kneeling, that was cool. Not so useful on the battlefield. Basically how to finish a meeting that's pissing you off.

Goes to the point that a (sword) fight really starts when one party decides another needs killing, not with two guys at the ready from dueling positions. Advantage katana, the weapon that HEMA nerds love to rag on for being slow and unwieldy.

And one could argue that in open field battle, the primary weapon of the samurai is the bow, because in pitched battle, the samurai class was first a mounted archer fulfilling the role of light cavalry, heavy cavalry and subsequent spear charges being relatively rare on the mountainous terrain of the Japanese main islands. The bow was rendered moot by the introduction of the matchlock musket during the Sengoku period, but the Sengoku period also ushered in three centuries of peace, in which the samurai were generally armed only with their sidearms - the sword.

 

[Phlog]

I'm in deep, have spent far too much money on equipment the last couple of months!

I've spent over £1300 and have just jacket, helmet, gloves and sword so far, gourget, trousers, chest plate to go. It's really impressive how much protection the fencing gear provides but it's not cheap. I'm buying exactly what I want rather than buying twice, but that means each piece is hundreds. Got my eye on some gloves that are fucking amazing, full 1800N protection with full articulation but that's next year they become available at £360..

But it's all so cool!..

IMO, you have it exactly backwards.

Versus the Western fencing tradition, the Japanese tradition largely stopped evolving some time after the Sengoku Jidai. It's living, but it's living in the same way as a coelacanth - largely as a living fossil.

The oldest Western fencing clubs also have long, unbroken lineages, some dating back 400+ years. To put that in perspective, Europeans were still fencing with longswords, which are roughly analogous to the katana in usage and technique. Fencing evolved through many forms and styles of swords, broadswords, bucklers, rapiers, sabers, smallswords, so on until modern sport fencing of today.

How much did the roughly contemporaneous Yagyu Shinkage Ryu or even the older Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu evolve in equipment and practice during that time?

How often were they "tested," except against each other in isolation, in a society that was largely kept in a form of autocratic enforced cultural and developmental stagnation? OTOH, European concepts in warfare and combat were constantly being tested all over the world - the Spanish, Italians, Dutch and British all had extensive trading networks and empires that wrapped around the globe and were constantly exposed to new and different ideas. The concept and use of the curved sword made its way from Indo-Persia all the way to England and were used along with a variety of other swords in a way that contemporary fencers of the time knew of the strengths and weaknesses of different kinds of blades. How often did that kind of exposure happen for the Japanese?

The answer is that for the most part, it didn't.

Re reading this thread and my recent experience of HEMA, practicing this year has made what you wrote chime even further.

When I studied Toyama Ryu it was a matter of me learning the techniques.

Last week we were working on techniques to use upon binding with an opponent and throws were included, despite them being inappropriate for most competition. I was a pretty competitive judoka as a youth and have continued to use the skills I learned throughout my life, so I was able to add a few aspects to techniques taught so as to improve the leverage.

Everyone was entirely open to information from an external source because it obviously improved efficiency. Back in Toyama Ryu it would have been: that's judo, here we are learning what we learn.

It might be an aspect of the cultural differences but it's clear to me that the longsword fencing I'm learning at the moment is as alive as the kickboxing I used to compete in, anything that works is adopted, there is no ego attached to the source texts, application is key.